Matter Labs | Q1 2026 Deliverables Report

Protocol Development
1

Summary

In Q1 2026, we sharpened our focus from protocol infrastructure to production-grade institutional deployments. The quarter was defined by a Prividium-first strategy: harden the core, ship the Bank Stack, connect private systems to Ethereum liquidity, and most importantly, build for our customers,

Highlights included:

  • Published the ZKsync 2026 Roadmap (coverage), centering on privacy, deterministic control, and institutional adoption at scale

  • Launched the Cari Network (blog) to power a bank-governed tokenized deposit network for five major U.S. regional banks

  • Deployed the Matter Labs Prividium mainnet which serves as the first production Prividium chain

  • Activated the ZKnomics Staking Pilot (Season 1) with 300m+ ZK staked at 10% APR, +190M ZK net new active delegation, strengthening governance participation (bringing active voting power to ~1.13B ZK)

  • Sustained Airbender’s leading position on the EthProofs leaderboard through Q1, maintaining a leading position on the EthProofs leaderboard

  • Announced Airbender’s 100% post-quantum proof readiness

  • Advanced the v31 interoperability upgrade (upgrade tracker) to production-readiness with interop fees, gateway compatibility, and security enhancements

  • Set up post-sunset claiming tools and set the specific May 4, 2026 deprecation date for ZKsync Lite (originally announced Q4 2025), completing the transition to the ZK Stack ecosystem

  • Shipped dozens of Prividium features asked by our institutional partners to set them up for successful mainnets

Together, these milestones mark ZKsync’s transition from foundational infrastructure to visible institutional scale. Our achievements were validated by bank deployments, institutional, and sovereign partnerships, and a proving system competing for Ethereum L1 itself.

1. Enterprise Infrastructure & Compliance

Q1 2026 marked a decisive acceleration in enterprise adoption, with Prividium evolving from a privacy engine into bank-grade production infrastructure.

  • Cari Network Selects Prividium: Cari Network announced the selection of ZKsync’s Prividium to build a bank-governed tokenized deposit network (blog). Five major U.S. regional banks are participating, using tokenized deposits that function like stablecoins while retaining the benefits of traditional banking and compliance. The Cari network is in late testnet and Production rollout is planned for later in 2026.

  • BitGo Partnership: BitGo joined on as the custody and settlement partner for Prividium (CoinDesk), closing the last gap in the institutional stack. With this, custody, wallets, and compliant settlement are all available in a single production-ready package.

  • Continued sustained growth: Q1 saw multiple partners advance from exploration into testnets that will be announced later this year.

2. Prividium: From Privacy Engine to Bank-Grade Infrastructure

Q1 2026 was Prividium’s breakout quarter. The Prividium platform evolved from a privacy-preserving framework into production infrastructure trusted by regulated financial institutions.

  • Matter Labs Prividium Mainnet: We deployed the Matter Labs Prividium mainnet, which will serve as the first production Prividium chain in order to validate the platform end-to-end for institutional workloads. Alongside this, we shipped multiple platform releases delivering security hardening (token hashing, timing vulnerability fixes, XSS protection), immutable system contracts, admin UI improvements (webhook key rotation, documentation links, decoded events), bridge reliability fixes, SDK updates, and detailed developer guides.

  • Private Interop Architecture: Began implementing the private interoperability architecture for Prividium chains, enabling compliant cross-chain connectivity without exposing sensitive transaction data.

  • Managed Services & Compliance Readiness: Achieved SOC2 Type I readiness and progressed towards SOC2 Type II compliance, to be finalized later this year.

  • Prover Integration for Prividium Networks: Cut prover costs ~3x, enabling economically viable managed proving for Prividium networks. This cost reduction is key to Prividium’s commercial model, making it feasible to operate dedicated proving infrastructure for each institutional client.

3. Private Interoperability & Protocol Architecture

Q1 advanced the interop stack toward production-readiness, completing key audit and design milestones for the v31 interoperability upgrade.

  • v31 Interoperability Upgrade – Audit & Finalization: Advanced the v31 interop upgrade. The v31 upgrade is ZKsync’s native interoperability layer, enabling cross-chain asset transfers, interop bundles, and messaging across the Elastic Network. In Q1 we completed the security audit, finalized Gateway compatibility, and shipped a public testnet demo. A governance proposal is forthcoming at the ZK Nation Forum.

  • v29.3 and v29.4 Patch Upgrades: Executed critical protocol patch upgrades across all Elastic Network chains maintaining network security and stability while preparing the path to v31.

  • Interop SDK & Developer Tooling Design: Kicked off the interop SDK and began building developer tooling for cross-chain UX.

4. Network Economics & Governance

We took concrete steps to activate token utility and strengthen governance participation, culminating in the “From Governance to Utility” token proposal published on the ZK Nation Forum.

  • ZKnomics Staking Pilot – Season 1: The ZKnomics Staking Pilot surpassed 300+ $ZK staked at approximately 10% APR by end of Q1, with strong governance participation through delegation to Active Delegates. The no-lockup model continued to drive organic staking growth, laying the technical groundwork for a future decentralized sequencer.

  • ZKsync Lite – May 4, 2026 Shutdown Date Set: Following the initial deprecation announcement in Q4 2025, we set the specific shutdown date of May 4, 2026 for ZKsync Lite (ZKsync 1.0). We’ve prepared for all sunset scenarios and ensured users will be able to withdraw both before and after sunset. Read-only APIs will be maintained for at least one year post sunset.

5. Performance & Proving: Airbender Goes to Ethereum

We continued to push the frontier of ZK proving performance, positioning Airbender as a leading candidate for proving Ethereum L1 itself.

  • Airbender Sustained EthProofs Leadership: Throughout Q1, Airbender maintained its leading position on the EthProofs leaderboard (first entered in Q4 2025). On a single RTX 4090, Airbender achieves an average Ethereum block proof time of ~51 seconds at less than one cent. These are the leading results among all participating zkVMs. See EthProofs leaderboard, where Airbender consistently holds the top position.

  • Airbender is 100% post-quantum proof, aligning with the Ethereum Foundation’s PQ security initiative.

  • Prover Cost Optimization: We have cut prover costs dramatically, enabling economically-viable proving for Prividium networks.

Q1 2026 represents a pivotal shift for ZKsync from protocol readiness to institutional production at scale. Public announcements include five U.S. banks building a tokenized deposit network on Prividium, the Atlas upgrade live across the Elastic Network, Airbender sustaining its lead on the EthProofs leaderboard with post-quantum readiness, and active governance through the staking pilot. We entered a new phase defined by regulated finance adoption, production-grade privacy infrastructure, and economic sustainability.

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